A/75/329 74. Far-right and radical Islamist groups are also using social media to exploit the pandemic, “calling the virus an act of God against the enemies of Islam. They are also trying to stoke violent opposition to leaders in the Middle East, describing those who have discouraged religious and other large gatherings as defilers of the faith.” 41 Some have discussed sites for spreading infection, such as supermarkets, hospitals and power stations; or visiting synagogues and coughing in the face of rabbis. 75. The Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Brussels submitted the following information: With the lockdown in the Russian Federation, a majority of xenophobic activities went online. Focusing largely on anti-migrant sentiment, and in some cases using State television, Russian nationalists spread false rumours of robberies carried out by “hungry migrants” from Central Asia. This prompted groups, including Conservative Yekaterinburg and the Nation and Freedom Committee, to call for Russians to arm themselves. Nationalist sites published anti-migrant invectives about robberies and murders, for example about “guest worker gangs” operating in various parts of Moscow. Far-right platforms posted petitions demanding that the migration be tightened, with such headlines as “Question of the day: how dangerous are unemployed migrants?” and “Famine, theft and suicide: what coronavirus has brought migrants to”. The National Democratic Party published a statement that it would “protect the labour market and security for Russian citizens”, and proposed that migrants who lost their jobs be deported. B. State policy responses Public health responses 76. The ubiquitous antisemitic conspiracy theories and neo-Nazi and other ethnonationalist fear-mongering and hatred have a grave impact on the ability to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus. A recent study has shown that people who hold COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs are less likely to comply with social distancing guidelines or take up future vaccines. 42 As politicians and other persons of influence perpetuate these conspiracy theories and prejudices, people become apprehensive as to the veracity and sources of public health measures. 77. Stigmatization by public officials contributes to fear and leads people to avoid testing for the virus. If people do not trust authorities and do not feel safe enough to report their symptoms or contact history, the virus will spread more easily through their community and the country as a whole. 43 This further aggravates marginalization of these communities, and makes them distrustful about the motives of health-care professionals and less likely to comply with medical advice. 44 The World Health Organization deliberately assigns medical nomenclature to a virus (e.g. COVID-19 or H1N1), rather than an ethnic or national origin moniker (e.g. “the Wuhan flu”), in order to “avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups” 45 and to avoid undercutting public health responses to disease. It is __________________ 41 42 43 44 45 20-11206 Souad Mehkennet, “Far right-wing and radical Islamist groups are exploiting coronavirus turmoil”, Washington Post, 10 April 2020. University of Oxford news and events, “Conspiracy beliefs reduce the following of government coronavirus guidance”, 22 May 2020. Meenakshi Ganguly, “India’s steps to contain COVID-19 have failed to curb anti-Muslim rhetoric”, Human Rights Watch, 18 April 2020. Sandeep Kumar and Sumit Ray, “How bigotry, like COVID-19, can go viral: the ABC of a modern pandemic”, The Times of India, 14 April 2020. World Health Organization, “World Health Organization best practices for the naming of new human infectious diseases”, May 2015. 17/23